LIBRARY^ congress: 

Chap LZj (^ X J 

™55yTATES OP AMERIOA. 



James Abram Garfield. 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS 



O-EOI^O-IE ID.,^3Sr^^ BO.A.I^3D 3^^ .<^ 3:T . 



SEPTEMBER 26, 1881 



OF co/irffl^ 



^//i 



1881 



AN ADDRESS 



IN COMMEMORATION OF 



James Abram Garfield. 

President of the United States, 

DELIVERED IN THE MEETING HOUSE 

OF THE 

pIRST I^APTIST QhURCH OF PHILADELPHIA, 

On the Day of his Funeral, at Cleveland, Ohio, 

SEPTEMBER 20, 1881. 



By George Dana Boardman, /^^^ r::^s:^^-^=<''-^»'s 

Fastoi". 







PUBLISHED BV REQUEST. 



\ ^>^ \ ] 



PHILADELPHIA : 
THE CHANDLER PRINTING HOUSE. 

Nos, 306 & 30S Chestnut street. 



E 4^7 



ADDRESS. 



AT high noon of Friday, the fourteenth day of 
April, 1865, the National Flag, which precisely 
four years before had been first traitorously 
struck down at Fort Sumter, was, by order of President 
Lincoln, re-uplifted on the spot of the original surrender. 
Recognizing the symbolical propriety of the President's 
order, we, at the same hour, gathered in this temple to 
commemorate the re-establishment of the National 
Flag. It was indeed an exultant scene. The church 
was gaily festooned, and in our music we blended the 
Star-Spangled Banner and the Batde-Hymn of the 
Republic, with the Triumphal Ode of Deborah. Alas ! 

Man, thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear! 

Late in the evening of that same Friday, our great 
President fell, the victim of the assassin's bullet. It, 
was in the early days of telegraphy, and the joyous 
nation retired to sleep, unconscious of the mighty be- 
reavement which had befallen them. How anguished 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 



and terror-stricken we were when we read in the morn- 
ing- papers the following dispatch from Secretary Stan- 
ton : — " Abraham Lincoln died this morning at twenty 
minutes past seven." 

Oh, what a fall was there, my countrymen ! 
Then I, and you, and all of us, fell down. 
Whilst bloody treason flourished over us. 

The following Wednesday, we held here our memo- 
rial service, the gay festoons of Friday having given 
way to solemn drapery. Since then, sixteen eventful 
years have rolled away : and again, amid these em- 
blems of grief, we are gathered to engage in the holy 
office for the dead. This tragic scene ; how like it is 
to that, and yet how unlike ! Like it, because there 
lies on his catafalque a second martyr President. Un- 
like it, because then the agony was sudden and tem- 
pestuous, only five days intervening between assassi- 
nation and burial: whereas now the agony has been 
one of cruel suspense, eighty-seven days having wearily 
dragged between the murderer's shot and the martyr's 
death. Oh, this protracted, consuming anguish ; ever 
^nd anon, thank Heaven, relieved by moments of bright 
expectancy ; the nation's heart, like a mighty pendulum, 
oscillating between the Gerizim of hope and the Ebal 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 



of dread. And now the pendulum has ceased to swing, 
hanging motionless amid the abyss of an unutterable 
woe. God of mercy, soothe our bursting hearts ! 

Assembled though we are to do honor to our illus- 
trious President's memory, it is scarce fitting that I 
should detain you with biographical details ; it is a part 
of Garfield's greatness, that they are already familiar 
to us, enshrined in our popular literature, our national 
archives, and our patriotic memories. How climacte- 
ric his career has been ! How grandly it illustrates 
the potencies of our free institutions ! Born in a log- 
cabin, in one of the dense forests of Ohio, a canal-boy, 
a struggling student, a president of a college, a major- 
general of volunteers, a congressional representative, 
a national senator, a President of the United States : 
James Abram Garfield stands to-day the world's idol- 
hero. How fitting to apply to him his own description 
of Abraham Lincoln, as answering- to the laureate's 
portrait of a 

Divinely gifted man, 
Whose life in low estate began, 
And on a simple village green; 

Who breaks his birth's invidious bar. 

And grasps the skirts of happy chance, 

And breasts the blows of circumstance, 
And grapples with his evil star; 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 



Who makes by force his merit known, 

And lives to clutch the golden keys, 

To mould a mighty state's decrees. 
And shape the whisper of the throne ; 

And moving up from high to higher, 

Becomes on Fortune's crowning slope 

The pillar of a people's hope. 
The centre of a world's desire. 

But it is not my purpose to dwell on his eventful 
and brilliant career. 1 wish at this point to speak only 
of his personal character. And a remarkable charac- 
ter it was. Not that it was faultless ; far from it ; he 
was but a man, and, like the best of men, he had his 
share of human defects and infirmities. But he was 
President of fifty millions of people ; and, better still, 
he, in virtue of his own mental and moral worth, was 
fit to be their president. Let me then attempt a rapid 
portrayal of his personality. 

It was his orood fortune to inherit from his robust 
ancestry a vigorous bodily constitution. Stalwart in 
frame, athletic in action, temperate in habits, he was 
enabled to grapple with the misfortunes of poverty, the 
hardships of military life, the strains of civic strife, and 
at last, how heroically we know, to close in for eighty 
days with that ghastly foe at whose adamantine feet 
we all must lie. 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 



His mental endowments were many and rich. Swift 
in insight, keen in observation, patient in investigation,- 
subtle in discrimination, calm in reasoning, cautious in 
conclusion, clear in judgment, broad in comprehension, 
affluent in memory, sagacious in planning, weighty in 
counsel, delicate in humor, rich in imagination, aesthetic 
in sensibility, lluent in utterance, perspicuous in diction : 
these native gifts were enriched by the most sedulous 
culture. Born with an intense thirst for knowledge, 
he spared no pains to inform himself in all possible 
directions, revelling in all varieties of intellectual toil. 
An adept in the languages, classic and modern ; a con- 
noisseur in the arts; a devotee of the higher poetry; a 
master in political history, and constitutional law, and 
fiscal science, and social economy, and the civic prob- 
lems generally : — President Garfield was, in an emi- 
nent sense, our Scholar-Statesman. 

In the range of the social instincts and faculties, he 
was also pre-eminent. Dignified and courteous in de- 
meanor, he was at the same time and in an intense de- 
gree a companionable man. Blithe in spirit, affable in 
manner, catholic in sympathy, conciliatory in tempera- 
ment, sensitive to all signs of goodness in his Iriends, 
generous in his interpretation of those who differed 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 



from him, profoundly affectionate; he was a dutiful 
son, a loving husband, a fond father, a beloved neigh- 
bor, a sturdy friend, a chivalrous foe. Few men have 
ever lived endowed with such magnetic power of friend- 
ship : witness the enthusiastic love of his college-class- 
mates; the deep attachment of his neighbors; the ten- 
der devotion of his personal, and military, and political 
friends, and even his political foes ; the pathetic, un- 
wearied vigil and ministry of his Cabinet, his physicians, 
his nurses, his domestic servants ; the tears of a nation. 
It is the domesticity of his character, his capacity for 
the home feeling, which is one of the secrets of the 
universal and poignant grief. 

But it is in the range of the moral faculties that our 
lamented President shone the brightest. On the occa- 
sion of the reception tendered him by the Legislature 
of Ohio, in honor of his election to the United States 
Senate, he used words so quaint and yet so pregnant 
that I must quote them : — 

" During the twenty years that I have been in pubHc life, 
" almost eighteen of it in the Congress of the United States, 
" I have tried to do one thing. Whether I was mistaken or 
" otherwise, it has been the plan of my Hfe to follow my con- 
" viction at whatever personal cost to myself. I have repre- 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 



" sented for many years a district in Congress whose approba- 
" tion I greatly desired ; but though it may seem, perhaps, a 
" little egotistical to say it, I yet desired still more the appro- 
" bation of one person, and his name was Garfield. He is the 
"only man that I am compelled to sleep with, and eat with, 
" and live with, and die with ; and if I could not have his ap- 
" probation, I should have bad companionship." 

Golden are these v^^ords, alike in themselves and as 
the key to President Garfield's moral career. En- 
dovi^ed with a sensitive conscience, he was instinctively 
observant of ethical proprieties or moral decorum. 
Endowed with a keen sense of duty or moral obliga- 
tion, he had the courage of convictions, gallantly de- 
fending the oppressed, stoutly championing the policy 
of honest 'money, bravely urging the duty of civil ser- 
vice reform. Endowed with a delicate sense of per- 
sonal honor, he was a man of public and private recti- 
tude, one of those rare civilians who, as the Laureate 
sings of the Iron Duke : — 

Never sold the truth to serve the hour, 
Nor palter'd with Eternal God for power. 

Endowed with the worshipful instinct, he had a nat- 
ural reverence for all that is morally great ; he was a 



lO MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 



devoted Christian, and, like the great Michael Fara- 
day, worshiping with the litde company of Sandema- 
nians, he bravely avowed and maintained his fellow- 
ship with the feeble, obscure Church of the Disciples. 
In brief ; endowed with a signal capacity for conceiving 
and cherishing ideals, he was an ideal student, an ideal 
citizen, an ideal statesman, an ideal president, an ideal 
friend, in one word, an ideal man. Here is the real 
secret of these unparalleled demonstrations. It was 
not merely because he was the President of fifty mil- 
lions of freemen ; it was chiefly because, through the 
elective grace of our sovereign God in ordering his 
unique character and career, he was among these fifty 
millions the signal man ; this is the secret of the count- 
less telegrams of sympathy ; the national, pathetic vigil 
of eighty days ; the solemn, reverent conveyance to 
Long Branch ; the touching tributes of queens and 
kaisers; the imiversal ebon drapery; the bowing mil- 
lions as the illustrious dead is being reverently borne 
to his sleeping-place. The secret of the nation's and 
world's lamentation is this: We have lost a President 
who was a CHRISTIAN MAN. And he has won his 
reward. " How many more stations," quaintly asked 
the distinguished, weary sufferer of his physicians, 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 1 I 



"must I Stop at before I reach home?" None, illus- 
trious, Christian, Garfield ! Thou, after many a heroic 
struggle, hast, by the grace of God, " scaled the top- 
pling crags of duty," and, at last, reached thy home- 
station, even the Paradise of our God. 

Here, my countrymen, 1 stay my tribute. Feeble 
though it is, it is sincere. Nor can I close this part of 
my address more appropriately than in the words of 
our lamented hero, at one of the anniversaries he cele- 
brated with his comrades of the Civil War : — 

" We hold reunions, not for the dead ; for there is nothing 
" in all the earth that you and I can do for the dead. They 
" are past our help and past our praise. We can add to them 
" no glory ; we can give to them no immortality. They do 
" not need us ; but forever and forevermore do we need them." 

But it is not right that we separate without seeking 
to learn some of the lessons which our Father would 
teach us in this awful bereavement. Again let me 
quote from the late President. On the day that Con- 
gress assembled to offer their tribute to the memory 
of President Lincoln, Representative Garfield, in the 
course of his address, spoke as follows : — 

" O, Sir, there are times in the history of men and nations, 



12 MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 



" when they stand so near the veil that separates mortals and 
" immortals, time from eternity, and men from their God, that 
" they can almost hear their breathings and feel the pulsations 
'* of the heart of the Infinite. Through such a time has this 
" nation passed. When two hundred and fifty thousand brave 
" spirits passed from the field of honor through that thin veil 
" to the presence of God, and when at last its parting folds ad- 
" mitted that martyred President to the company of the dead 
" heroes of the Republic, the nation stood so near the veil 
" that the whispers of God were heard by the children of men." 

Prophetic words these. Again the veil has parted, 
and through it has passed another martyred President. 
Again the Lord God of hosts whispers to us. Hear, 
then, O my countrymen, what the Lord our God is say- 
inof to us out of the whirlwind. 

And, first. His summons to amendment. P'itly does 
the President, in his proclamation, call this a day of 
public humiliation and prayer. There is a multitude 
of sins for which we, as a nation, should be deeply 
penitent. 

Let me at this point specify one sin which has been 
brought into painful prominence by the tragedy at 
Washington : it is the thirst for office. Not that it is 
necessarily wrong to indulge in schemes of patriotic 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS. I 3 



ambition. The career of our lamented President, con- 
ceiving and cherishing for himself in early life a lofty 
ideal of an official vocation, and toiling to fit himself in 
every possible way for the great tasks of statesmanship, 
is a splendid instance of an honorable ambition. 
Would God that the young aspirants of our nation were 
seized by a like exalted ideal ! Alas, it is far otherwise. 
There is a selfish, ignoble, insane thirst for office ; not 
because it is a means of profiting others, but because 
it is a means of profiting the occupant, a means of per- 
sonal emolument, or respectability, or indolence. I 
know not how this national monomania can be cured, 
except by an entire revolution in respect to political 
patronage, or distribution of public spoils. It is right 
that the President should be elected by a party ; in fact, 
practically speaking, there is no other way of electing 
him. But it is not right, and therefore not safe, that, 
when elected, he should be the President of a party. 
The moment that he ascends the Chair of State, he 
must forget that he was a Republican or a Democrat ; 
henceforth he must be an American, knowing neither 
East nor West, neither North nor South, neither po- 
litical friend nor political foe. But so long as the 
American people concede to him the right to apportion 



14 MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 

a hundred thousand offices to his hungry poHtical 
friends, you will have, and cannot but have, a party 
President. He may be the best of men, even glorious 
James A. Garfield himself; but he must, in spite of that 
same self, be more or less a partisan Executive. If he 
is a bad man, he will of course appoint bad men, appor- 
tioning the public booty according to his personal 
whim, or the so-called " honor " of political bandits, or 
the stipulations of ignoble, preconcerted arrangements. 
If he is a good man, he will either be harried to death 
by importunity and anxiety, or he will become the tar- 
get of the personal hate of a quarter of a million of dis- 
appointed partisan applicants. I am not a statesman, 
and therefore am not conceited enough to dictate the 
method of cure. I am only a citizen, and therefore beg 
to suggest, in all modesty, what is by no means origi- 
nal, that the common-sense method of cure would seem 
to be this : In case of vacancy, by death or otherwise, 
official appointment according to civic ability, as deter- 
mined, say, by competitive test ; and official promotion 
according to proved success: all this, of course, being 
independent of party affiliations or obligations. For 
public officials, not less than physicians, or sea-captains, 
or engineers, need experience. Happy the day when 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS. . 1 5 



the President of the RepubHc shall be permitted to ad- 
minister the government according to the fidelity of the 
official, not according to the partisan obligation or per- 
sonal whim of the Executive. Listen then to God's 
voice as He speaks to the American people by the 
open grave of our noble President, assassinated by a 
disappointed office-hunter. 

But the mad thirst for office Is by no means the only 
or chief sin of our nation. There are, for example, the 
sins of official corruption and bribery ; the abuse of 
trusts ; the greed of riches ; the struggle for display ; 
selfish injustice and oppression ; devotion to temporali- 
ties, or the lower side of our nature ; intemperance ; 
profanity ; haughty self-confidence : indifference to 
God's commandments ; neglect of Jesus Christ, His 
Son, our Saviour ; in brief, practical atheism. Verily, 
to us and to our princes and to all Israel, near and far 
off, belongeth confusion of faces, because of our tres- 
passes that we have trespassed against the Lord. 
And therefore the Lord God of our fathers would, by 
this terrible calamity, wherein He has snatched from 
us — 

The expectancy and rose of the fair state, 

call us back to penitence and amendment of character. 



1 6 MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 



national and personal. For mere patriotism, my coun- 
trymen, will not save us. We must dig down deeper 
than love of country, if we would find the foundations on 
which to build an everlasting empire. Think not that 
our glorious past or our peculiar and signal natural 
advantages will ensure us lasting prosperity. Recall 
the history of the Jews. The most privileged of na- 
tions has become the most afflicted. What though we 
Americans have had a magnificent career? Vain the 
splendor of our history, the heroism of our fathers, the 
republican form of our government, the perfection of 
our written Constitution, the boundlessness of our re- 
sources, the indomitableness of our energy, the inten- 
sity of our patriotism ; all is in vain, unless we turn to 
tlu! God ot our fathers, doing justly, loving mercy, and 
walking humbly with our God. For the nation that 
knows of the Lord Christ, and bows not the knee be- 
fore Him, is the nation which the Lord Christ will, 
sooner or later, grind into powder. Hear, then, O 
AmcM-ican Israel, what the Lord God is saying to us 
out of the whirlwind. 

Secondly. — God's summons to thankfulness. For 
even amid these appalling shadows there is more than 
one gleam of heaven's own light. 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 1/ 



And, first, let us thank God for the President's char- 
acter as it has been revealed, and, if I may so say, even 
forced out into involuntary, unconscious disclosure by 
the terrible compression of his tragic environment. 
The admirable, unbroken poise which he maintained 
amid sudden assault and abruptly impending death ; 
the lovino- thouo^htfulness with which, amid an excite- 
ment and consternation so intense as to unnerve the 
bystanders, he, while still prone and anguished in the 
station, dictated to his absent, invalid wife, a dispatch 
which will be enshrined in literature as a model of con- 
siderate delicacy and affectionate pathos ; the magnan- 
imity which no torture consequent on his assassin's 
brutality was able to ruffle ; the dignified, unaffected 
simplicity with which he received the elaborate atten- 
tions of great offfcials, and the stately tributes of foreign 
potentates ; the patience with which he bore his intense 
and protracted pangs ; the calm resignation with which 
he accepted whatever cup the Father might have given 
him to drink ; the unfaltering trust in God and country- 
men, and republican institutions ; the dauntless, tireless 
bravery with which he, a disabled and prostrate suf- 
ferer, in simple love of family, and country, and God, 
for eighty days fought back on every side the advan- 

2 



1 8 MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 



cing hordes of death : these are some of the things 
wliich have sent a thrill of admiration throughout the 
world, welding all parties and all civilized nationalities 
into one serried phalanx around him, alike his devoted 
ministrant and his proud body-guard. 

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. 

For, and none would be swifter or gladder to assert 
the truth of the declaration than our noble President 
and his illustrious wife themselves, there are all over 
Christendom thousands of sufferers as heroic as he 
whom we lament to-day. But they " suffer and grow 
strong " in less conspicuous abodes ; the tragedies of 
their sick homes are unbulletined .• whereas, James 
Abram Garfield was lifted by his countrymen to the 
nation's loftiest pinnacle, and therefore was the object 
of universal gaze. Thank God, he endured the scrutiny 
well. In his patient, trustful bravery, God's providence 
has permitted him to become the radiant type of what- 
ever is noblest in our common humanity. Let us 
thank God then for our President's character. 

Again : Let us thank God for the revival of patriot- 
ism. It may be that the return ol peace and prosperity 
had made us somewhat less mindful of our patriotic 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS. I9 



obligations than was our wont in the dark days of the 
Civil War. But the moment the assassin's ball pierced 
the President's body, the nation felt that the ball pierced 
its own body politic. For the President of the United 
States, in simple virtue of the people's election of him 
to the Chief Magistracy, becomes for the time being, 
the nation's incarnate symbol. Accordingly, a blow 
struck at him is a blow struck at all of us. When, 
therefore, the President's stricken form fell prone in 
yonder depot, the nation instinctively felt that not only 
a foul murder, but also a sacrilegious treason had been 
attempted. The instinct of allegiance instantly burst 
into expression throughout the whole land, the South 
vleing with the North in demonstrations of loyalty, once 
more embracing each other in their mutual lamenta- 
tions, even as ages ago Ishmael and Isaac, Esau and 
Jacob wept on each other's neck, before the open cave 
of Machpelah. Let us thank God then for the revival 
of the spirit of patriotism. For when that murderous 
shot was fired, the flame of patriotic devotion was re- 
kindled on our country's common altar, and the re- 
cemented American nationality determined, as only a 
free people can determine, to crush out every vestige 
and hint of treason, in whatever form it may dare to 



20 MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 



show Itself, whether in a disappointed office-seeker's 
pistol, a nihilist's bomb, or a politician's bribe. Long 
live the Republic ! 

Again : Let us thank God for the sudden universal 
outbursting of latent sensibilities. It may be that in 
our misanthropic hours we think poorly of our fellow- 
men, and wonder whether it might not be better if all 
of us were dead. But when a great sorrow touches 
the world's heart, and, unsealing its fountains, floats 
out its latent wrath, and grief, and prayer, and trust, in 
a colossal surge of sensibility, then do we suddenly 
awake to the sense that this great humanity of ours is, 
indeed, worth living for, and, if need be, worth dying 
for; and we again hear God's voice, as from out a 
whirlwind, summoning us to consecrate ourselves 
afresh to human amelioration, education, and moral up- 
building. It is good then that a great tide of pathos 
should ever and anon sweep over a people. And 
what a great tide of pathos has swept over ours. The 
sudden shock, the welling sympathy, the fervent sup- 
plication, the anxious vigil, the bewildering suspense, 
the solemn journey to the ocean side, the trans-atlantic 
condolence, the alternating dread and trust : and, at 
last, the uncontrollable grief, the mighty dismay, the 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 21 



arrested London Exchange, the royal mourning, the 
bowing Christendom as the solemn cortege bears the 
revered relics to their last sleeping-place : has the 
world seen anything of the kind greater before ? Let 
us thank God then even for our mighty sorrow. 

This truth came borne with bier and pall, 

I feel it when I sorrow most, 

'Tis better to have loved and lost, 
Than never to have loved at all. 

And if (9/^;' hearts are so torn, what must be the des- 
pair of the stricken wife and children and mother ! 
O God of mercy. Husband of the widow, Father of the 
fatherless, Staff of the aged, have pity on them ! 

Once more : Let us thank God for the abrupt, im- 
pressive manifestation of the religious instinct. In 
times of prosperity, we are apt to be proud and hard 
hearted and practically atheistic. But when the tem- 
pest beats high, and we feel our souls plunging into 
the pit, then we instinctively turn to the most high (iod, 
and out of the deeps we cry unto Him. What an im- 
pressive spectacle the angels have been beholding the 
last few weeks ; prayerless houses suddenly turned 
into houses of supplication, a great nation on its knees 
before Alrriighty God. This well-nigh universal genu- 



22 MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 



flection proves to me a great and sacred thing : Man 
is in the depths of his nature a rehgious being. In 
moments of solemn gravity, the instinct of worship is 
stronger than tlie wilfulness of skepticism ; and 

Su the whole round earth is every way 
Bound l)y gold chains about the feet of God. 

And sorrow it is that has disclosed this reverent in- 
stinct. Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I 
keep Thy word. Ay, blessed is the man whom Thou 
chastenest, O Lord, and teachest him out of Thy law : 
for whom Thou lovest Thou correctest, even as a father 
the son he delighteth in. 

These then are two of the lessons of the hour : God's 
summons to amendment, and God's summons to thank- 
fulness. 

And now nought remains for us to do but to invoke 
the blessing of Almighty God upon him who has been 
so painfully summoned to the Chief Magistracy. 
Again I must quote from his lamented predecessor : 
In the memorable address he made in New York, at 
the time of the assassination of President Lincoln — 
how little he dreamed he was solemnly foretelling his 
own great tragedy ! — he said : — 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS, 23 



" Fellow-citizens ! Clouds and darkness are round about 
" Him ! His pavilion is dark waters and thick clouds of the 
" skies ! Justice and judgment are the establishment of His 
" throne ! Mercy and truth shall go before His face ! Fel- 
" low-citizens ! God reigns, and the Government at Washing- 
" ton still lives !" 

Ves, Chester Allan Arthur ! God reigns, and the 
Government at Washington still lives. Be loyal to thy 
great office, and to him who preceded thee, and we will be 
loyal to thee. " According as we hearkened unto Moses 
" in all things, so will we hearken unto thee ; only the 
" Lord thy God be zvith thee, as He was with Moses!' 

My countrymen, my tribute is ended. " God buries 
His workmen, but carries on their work." Once more 
I must quote from our illustrious Chieftain. Offering 
his memorial tribute to Abraham Lincoln, he said : — 

" I look forward with joy and hope to the day when our 
" brave people, one in heart, one in their aspirations for free- 
" dom and peace, shall see that the darkness through which 
" we have travelled was but a part of that stern but beneficent 
" discipline by which the Great Disposer of events has been 
" leading us on to a higher and nobler national life." 

Fit words these to be repeated of him who sixteen 



24 MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 



years ago pronounced them. As in the days of King 
Joash, when the body of the dead IsraeHte, on being 
let down into the sepulchre of Elisha, and on touching 
the bones of the mighty prophet, was revived and stood 
on its feet again ; so may God grant that as the nation's 
dead heart reverently touches to-day the dead heart of 
our great patriot, it may be quickened into life again, 
and stand erect in all the strength and splendor of a 
new-born majesty. 



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